Islam is a religion of what?

July 7, 2004

By Jackie Mason & Raoul Felder

Standing on Atlantic Avenue in
Brooklyn, on the afternoon of September 11, 2001, looking west to
Manhattan, the fires had turned the horizon a bright orange that rose to
great heights painted against a perfect pitiless blue sky.

Observing this terrible beauty, the residents of the neighborhood danced
in the streets, laughing, shouting to each other, shaking hands. These
people were not what one would suppose to be fanatical or militant
Muslims.

They were people who had come to these shores from the Middle
East, mostly shop keepers, bakers, purveyors of eastern spices, tradesmen,
cab drivers and the usual diversity of people found in a New York ethnic
neighborhood on a warm fall weekday.

They were American citizens however,
who were expressing their judgment - joy at the events of that horrible
day that forever changed our world and America's place in that world. They
were also the followers of Islam: religion of oppression, discrimination,
violence, terror, war, superstition, intolerance and prejudice.

They were the followers of a religion of hate who, at the very least, if not active
participants in the events of that world-changing day, took unashamed
pleasure in the violence visited upon those - including their fellow
citizens and neighbors - who did not share their beliefs.

The President has said about Islam: ...Islam inspires countless
individuals to lead lives of honesty, integrity and morality (12/5/02).
A...It's [Islam] a faith based on love, not hate. (9/10/02) "The Islam
that we know...teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy and
peace. (11/15/01).

Well, he is the President, and like Tony Blair, probably has to say these
sorts of politically-correct things in the belief that they are necessary
to be said, because to declare the truth would create a threat to the
maintenance of order or, it might provoke an outraged citizenry to
retaliate in a vengeful and illegal way, jeopardizing domestic
tranquility. We have no such impediment and trust that the truth can only
serve to enlighten and not to incite.

Islam exists as it is taught in the Koran and lived by Muhammad. Muhammad,
by the way, was hardly an example that one would wish to emulate. He had
affairs with maids and slave girls and was also a pedophile (and before we
get outraged e-mails on the latter point, here is chapter and verse: the
girl's name was Aisha, she was 9 he was 53. He was also involved in the
slave trade, assassinations and genocide. But, what the heck, nobody is
perfect.)

Let's, as the sportscasters say, go to the record, which, in this case is
the Koran.

Kill the disbelievers wherever we find them. (2:191)

Fight and slay the pagans (translation: that's us) seize them, beleaguer
them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem. (9:5)

Slay or crucify or cut the hands and feet of the unbelievers...(5:34)

...strike off the heads of the disbelievers...[make a] wide slaughter
among them, carefully tie up the remaining captives [for ransom] (947:4)

[treatment of disbelievers]...garments of fire shall be cut and there
shall be poured over their heads boiling water whereby whatever is in
their bowels and skin shall be dissolved and they will be punished with
hooked iron rods (22:19).

The Koran also instructs Muslims to slay or crucify or cut the hands and
the feet of the unbelievers (5:34), fight unbelievers until no other
religion except Islam remains. (3:85)

Given these basic teachings of Islam there is little reason to be
surprised at the beheading of Americans Nick Berg, Paul Johnson and Marine
Cpl. Wasef Ali Hassoun.

Of course, not all Muslims participate in violence or even express joy at
the perpetration of violence against the West in general, or Americans in
particular, just as all Germans in the forties did not believe when they
heard their anthem, Deutschland uber alles, that it meant literally that
Germany must conquer all other nations.

Some Germans embraced a passive
longing for Germany to be victorious; some few actually despised fascism,
and some, an almost non-existent few acted against it. So it is with Islam
and the Muslims. About the best the civilized world can expect is a joyous
but passive reaction to the mindless violence.

Empires have come and gone. Rome, Portugal, France, Holland, Germany and
even in our time, Great Britain, have seen their moment of world dominance
- have seen it flicker, and then, extinguish. And yet, they accepted it as
part of the panorama of history, and have moved on. Not so with Islam.

It is not by accident that our enemies call the coalition forces in Iraq
the Crusaders. To Islam the war, which they lost centuries ago, continues.

[It is of interest to note that the United States went to war with Muslim
powers in 1801. Barbary pirates kidnapped and made slaves of our citizens,
demanding tribute for their release. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson asked
of the envoy of Tripoli by what right did he make his claim for payment.

As reported to Congress by Jefferson, "The Ambassador answered us that it
was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their
Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority
were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them
wherever they could be found and to make slaves of all they could take as
Prisoners." ]

The enemy is not really the United States, nor even Israel. The enemy is
modernity itself and the forces of change that have made them irrelevant.
The West has persevered and they have lost. They are the have-nots, and to
the degree that they have the economic power of oil, even this has been
denied to them as a society by the corruption of their own despotic
rulers.

They are the past in a present and future that belongs to the
West. There is a chord that joins them with other losers like Lee Harvey
Oswald and Lee Boyd Malvo, devoid of any distinction or ability to even
control their own lives, who strike out in spasms of hate-filled rage.

Muslims, married to a failed past, offer little hope for integration into
modern society. Israel giving them land to which they are not entitled, or
the United States not punishing them for criminal acts will not assuage
their rage.
A

merica must learn it cannot negotiate or reason with people
who consider us infidels. It must recognize that the enemy is often among
us and all the exposure available to them in Western civilization with its
tolerances and respect for individual rights will not affect their
seething anger at imagined wrongs, injustices, and illogical sense of
entitlement.

Historically, use of strength, swift and certain punishment, and resolve
of purpose are all that is left us to effectively deal with their
primitive madness. And until we recognize this, there will be many more
beheadings and September elevenths.